The Los Angeles Lakers got blown out by the Minnesota Timberwolves 107-83 on Friday night. From the third quarter onward, L.A. was a wreck both offensively and defensively.
Timberwolves center Karl-Anthony Towns scored 18 of his 29 points in that third quarter as part of a 22-3 spurt that saw the Lakers held without a field goal for almost eight minutes. Overall, they were outsourced 40-12 in that period.
After the game, L.A. big man Anthony Davis called out his team’s performance.
“We have to decide who we want to be,” Davis said. “We got to care more for our wins at home, wins in general. That was embarrassing, to be up five at half — obviously, this team shoots a lot of threes and they have guys who can score the basketball — but there was no effort in the third quarter. … Energy in the third quarter wasn’t there for us.”
Davis went on to add that, at present time, the Lakers were not a championship team.
“A championship team?” Davis said. “We’re not winning a championship the way we’re playing. We have to be better.”
That said, Davis was quick to point out that this wasn’t any individual player’s failure. This was a collective dropping of the ball.
“What we can’t do is point the finger. ‘It was you, it was you, it was you.’ We have to say together,” AD added. “We hate feeling this way. We have to put together a stretch of games where we’re playing our style of basketball for 48 minutes and live with the result.”
Earlier this week Davis called Russell Westbrook out for his turnovers, and he seems to be taking a similar tact here. He wants guys to know that what transpired on Friday night was unacceptable.
Will that ultimately motivate everyone involved to work harder and help the Lakers get their season back on track? Time will tell.
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